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ComiCon, Day 0

Bad Astronomy
By Phil Plait
Jul 24, 2008 10:26 AMNov 5, 2019 12:26 AM

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So, how to describe today? Wow! Holy Haleakala! Crap! Interspersed with "hubba hubba", and "how does she walk in those things?" The first two are obvious enough. San Diego is a great town, and it's even better when a good friend like A is there to help (my live video chatters know her as the Op, ARealGirl). She took me around and made sure things went well. And that included getting to the hotel where I INTERVIEWED STEVEN MOFFAT, JULIE GARDNER, AND NAOKO MORI! Sorry. Lost myself there for a sec. For those of you hopelessly non-Doctor Whoish, Moffat is the writer of some of the best Who episodes, and will be taking over the show next year. Gardner is the executive producer of Doctor Who and Torchwood, and Mori is the actor who played Tosh in Torchwood.

I don't have time to give a rundown of the interviews right now (I will when I can), but all three of them were funny, charming, witty, and smart. It was a terrific hour, and I was totally squeeing the whole time. More details later. Oh -- the "crap" above is because I could not get myself set up to do the interviews on the live chat, and for that I offer my biggest apologies. However, I had the video running the whole time, so I'll edit it when I get back and post it. After that A and I went to the con to register, as did everyone else in San Diego. ComiCon is frakkin' HUGE. There were thousands of people there, and the con doesn't even really start until tomorrow! Evidentally, the number of attendees is over 100,000. Yeah, you heard me. We went to the pre-show, where they let some people in to the exhibit hall. You either have to have paid for a four day pass, or bought a special ticket, or be an internationally beloved blogger (and his friend). The hal is vast, and it was packed. Yet A saw an old friend of hers, and I ran into an astronomer friend of mine (hi Whitney!) and her husband. There was every kind of trinket, doodad, and gizmo for sale. Books, comics, sculptures, paintings, drawings, dice, electronics, shirts, and toys toys toys. We made our way immediately to the BBC booth, and A bought a few things, and (shhh, don't tell her!) I got The Little Astronomer a Doctor Who figure that she'll love. It was hard to hold back. They had a remote control Dalek! And a bunch of smaller Daleks! And Cybermen! And and and! Breathe. Breathe.

OK, better now. But this place defines nerdgasm, and it hasn't even started yet. Tomorrow I'm hoping to go to many panels and talks, and I am also hoping to be live blogging them as well as posting to Twitter. Sorry I got so behind today, but such is ComiCon. I just hope I can keep up on Thursday... But I'll upload images when I can to my Flickr account. Just check the ComiCon folder.

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